David Grisham Jr. is a self-described Christian “pastor” who once ran the fringe group Repent Amarillo. How fringe? In 2010, he posted a video of a firing squad executing Santa — because it distracted people from Jesus.

His latest stunt, done on behalf of his new group Last Frontier Evangelism, is just a step away from that. He strolled into a Texas mall, found a bunch of kids and parents waiting in line to take a picture with Santa, and yelled out that Santa wasn’t real… because Jesus was the true reason for the season.

As one might imagine, this didn’t go over well with those around him, and they reacted accordingly. And as befitting the adherent of a martyrs’ religion, Grisham dutifully whined he’d been attacked:

On Facebook, Grisham posted the video with the description that he was “ASSAULTED by parent at Amarillo Texas Mall” for talking about Jesus. There’s no evidence of that in the video other than a man coming close to him and asking him to stop yelling.

I’d considered embedding the video here, but won’t. Note how Grisham spelled “assaulted” with ALL CAPS in order (he thinks!) to provoke maximum outrage from his readers, as part of his Christian persecutorial complex. Imagine that … people don’t actually like being screampreached! Whodathunkit!?

As for Christians who think Santa Claus is unChristian, that’s actually old news. Back in my own fundie days, we were discouraged from having anything to do with Christmas symbols that weren’t directly tied to Jesus and Christian theology. For instance, snowflake, reindeer, and snowman decorations were frowned upon, as opposed to candles, stars, or bells (because Jesus was “the light of the world”; due to the “star of Bethlehem”; and connections to the ancient Hebrew priesthood, respectively) as well as, more obviously, creches.

In fact, there have been Christian movements which objected to Christmas outright. It has too many pagan overtones for their taste, you see. The Puritans, for example, outlawed it when they ruled England and some of the Colonies.

At any rate, the only thing I find surprising about this, is that — given the prevalence of Christian fundamentalism in many parts of the country, as well as the militancy with which it’s often followed — moments such as this aren’t more common than they are. I wonder if most of the Christians who object to Christmas entirely or to certain aspects of it, are just keeping their mouths shut for reasons of their own. Perhaps they fear that any apparent infighting over Christmas might make their religion look bad, or something. I have no idea. What I do know is that it’s not just “secular progressives” who’ve criticized certain aspects of Christmas (e.g. nativity scenes on town-hall lawns) … sometimes other Christians have beefs with Christmas.